


No Good Thing

by Brinady



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Episode Tag, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24337033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinady/pseuds/Brinady
Summary: Just a fluffy little tag to Episode 5: Bottled Appetites.Later Geralt apologizes for leaving Yennefer behind in Rinde, but how did that transpire and why? And how is it that he always seems to end up travelling with a certain bard instead?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	No Good Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on a couple other longer witcher fics and this one just kind of happened in the mean time. Not much substance and mostly fluff, but I figured I'd share it anyway. Cheers!

Geralt awoke to the cold, inky stillness that only comes in the hours just before dawn.

Sleep, _blessed sleep,_ had been dreamless, deep, and oooooh so good. 

He stretched slightly and then stopped, awakening muscles still somewhat sore from beatings given and taken the day before.

A warm, comfortable presence at his side made him pause. The mage. The crazy, fierce, intoxicating one. 

Yennefer.

He tilted his head to regard her. Even his eyes could barely make out her still, soft form in the moonless night.

She was good.

That was a problem.

No good thing could last for a witcher.

At least not for him.

Time to go. 

He exercised all his carefully honed stealth to rise in perfect silence and pick his way through the rubble and out of the ruined manor. 

After a quiet moment of testing the breezes he caught scent of Roach. She was at least near where he had hastily picketed her when he’d arrived. 

He felt a pang of guilt. 

She’d gone without food or water as he’d been enjoying himself, and then as he’d been... not himself, and then as he’d been enjoying himself even more. He hadn’t meant to spend two nights in this perverse little hamlet.

Things had just...gotten out of hand.

He rounded the building and then paused as another familiar scent mingled with that of Roach. 

_Jaskier._

Having satisfied himself that the bard was no longer dying, he hadn’t spared the irritating man another thought, what with the sorceress taking up all of his attention and more.

But there was the bard’s scent, mingled slightly with the sweet smell of hay and the ominous odor of old blood. 

He ducked into what smelled like the livery and was surprised to find Roach sleeping comfortably. She’d been untacked, groomed, and provided with hay and a bucket of water. He walked over to her and put a hand gently on her shoulder. “Morning, Roach,” he said quietly.

Her ear twitched and an eye opened to regard him dimly. Her master appearing at odd moments was one of the few constants in her unusual life, and she was not remotely alarmed. 

The witcher stroked her mane, “Shall we make an early start of it, girl?” He asked her.

She bumped his arm with her nose, looking for treats. 

“Yeah, I’m ready if you are.” He knuckled her cheek affectionately and she snorted loudly. 

At the sound of the snort, a dark pile of cloth and hay stirred in the corner of the stall and hands reached out from it, blindly groping for the walls. “Geralt,” came the familiar, annoying voice, sounding alarmed “Geralt? Is that you.” The bard fumbled at his belt, looking for something with which to defend himself. 

“It is.” Geralt said simply.

The bard’s frame deflated in relief. “Oh, thank the _gods_. I was afraid one of those sex-starved villagers had stumbled in here for some fun.” He shuddered visibly, “That _was_ an actual _orgy_ that we stumbled into earlier, wasn’t it? I wasn’t imagining things?”

“Hmm.” Geralt confirmed. “Is that my cloak?” 

Jaskier ran a hand over the dark fabric. “Oh, right. Well it got quite cold here overnight, which i’m guessing you didn’t notice, and you weren’t using it at the time, so I sort of, you know-- helped myself.” He started to shrug out of the over-large garment.

“Leave it.” Geralt growled.

Jaskier paused, grinned into the darkness, and pulled the cloak tighter around himself. “Why _thank you_ Geralt. Getting some sleep really _has_ improved your disposition.” 

Geralt grunted. Seeing the stump of a torch in a nearby sconce he used ‘igni’ to coax a wan flame out of the spent wood. “What are you doing here?” He grumbled at the bard as he set to work saddling Roach.

Jaskier blinked and squinted, human eyes finally able to see in the dim torchlight. “Well, you, ah...you did go to rather a lot of trouble to save my life,” he fingered his throat, wincing at the memory, “So I thought it was the least I could do to look after your interests while you were…” he coughed, “... _indisposed_.”

“Hmm.” 

“I may be forced to admit that it was also the best way to ensure you didn’t slip off in the dead of night and leave me behind again…”

 _“Jaskier…”_ Geralt scowled and turned toward the bard.

“Look, I’m _sorry_ about the djinn, Geralt, I really am. That was selfish of me and petty and, while you _really_ went out of your way to hurt my feelings, I can admit that over-sensitivity to criticism _may_ be a bit of a personal failing of mine. I overreacted...it won’t happen again.” He went to lean against Roach’s back but saw Geralt eyeing him and backed off. 

Geralt gave a half grimace as he reached up to slip the horse’s bridle over her head. “Well, I did get my wish for sleep, in the end.” He conceded with a bit of a shrug. 

_“I’ll say_ you did!” Jaskier grinned and elbowed Geralt lightly. 

The witcher looked back over his shoulder with a mildly horrified frown.

“I mean, not that I was, um… you know… I didn’t _see_ anything. I just sort of _assumed_ that you two ah…”

“Shut up Jaskier.” 

“Right, good!” The bard hoisted the saddlebags over the saddle-skirt and started tying them on, mindful of the mare’s swishing tail that had an uncanny habit of targeting his eyeballs. 

“You know, I couldn’t account for your armor, Geralt.” He said, patting a rather empty saddle bag. “Though perhaps you gave it up of your own accord? You do appear to have visited both a tailor and a tavern brawl while I was out,” he squinted into the witcher’s face, “Those bruises have gotten a lot darker,” he extended a finger to poke Geralt in the jaw and the witcher swiftly batted it away, “You sure you’re alright?” 

“Hm. Says the man with blood down the front of his shirt.”

Jaskier looked down and swore. “My things…” he said mournfully, clearly remembering for the first time. “My _lute_ . I left them in the tavern back in Birchford. I don’t even know where Birchford _is_ from here, Geralt.” 

The witcher was already leading Roach out of the stall.

“Geralt?!” Jaskier chased after.

The witcher paused to regard the bard, who looked oddly child-like in the ill-fitting cloak, despite being of a height with Geralt. It was true that no good thing lasted for a witcher. But the foolish bard was hardly a ‘good thing,’ was he? And somehow or another, his persistence had brought him in and out of Geralt’s company for decades, after all. 

Geralt shrugged. “Come on.” He said, and led Roach forward.

He heard Jaskier trot up beside him and noted, approvingly, out of the corner of his eye that he’d bundled up the excess cloak so that it didn’t drag on the ground.

“Where to, then?” The bard asked.

“Birchford.”

“Geralt!” the delight was evident in the bard’s voice, “You really _do_ give a monkey’s.”

“Hm.” Geralt huffed, “I was already headed that way before all of...this.” He waved a hand in the general direction of Jaskier and the collapsed tower.

“Right, certainly, of course.” Jaskier nodded, obviously pretending to agree, “Got a job lined up over there?”

Geralt shrugged. “Nekkers in the graveyard.” It was a safe bet. Most graveyards in these parts had a nekker or two.

“Naturally.” Jaskier said. He’d passed by that graveyard a few days before-- it was pristine. He fell back a few paces so that he was walking behind Geralt, beside Roach’s saddle. 

“Thanks, Geralt.” He said quietly, looking down with a private smile.

“Hm?” Geralt asked, sparing a look over his shoulder.

“Nothing.” 

“Jaskier.” 

“Yes?”

“Don’t touch Roach.”


End file.
